Sustainability

Sustainability means, "meeting the needs of today without compromising the ability to meet the needs of tomorrow". Sustainable Construction aims to apply this principle to the construction industry by providing buildings that use less material and less energy, cause less pollution and less waste but still provide the benefits that construction projects have brought us throughout history.

The construction industry is directly and indirectly responsible for about half the total UK emissions of CO2, 90% of all surface mineral extraction and over a quarter of all waste sent to landfill sites. These figures include new and existing buildings but they do not take into account that the UK building stock is only replaced at the rate of about 1% a year and new buildings are obviously more energy and resource efficient than older ones.

In Northern Europe, people spend over 90% of their time inside, and if they are not inside, they are usually travelling from one building to another. This means that the construction, use and management of buildings have a dramatic impact on both the human and wider environments.

As an example, the construction process itself generates significant quantities of waste, about a fifth of all waste arisings are attributable to the construction sector. This waste is generated at every stage in a normal construction project, from initial winning of resources such as aggregate, through processing, packaging, transport, use on site, repair and disposal.

A significant portion of these arisings can be designed out of a project with careful selection of materials. For example, a steel frame building generates waste from mining, processing, transport and the like even before the foundations are laid but a timber frame building carries no such environmental burden.

Proper management of all aspects of building design, construction and use can dramatically reduce the overall cost of a building throughout its life, and need not even cost more at the design and build stages. Sustainable Construction improves the performance of building projects at every stage, both in financial and environmental terms.

Pentagon are fully committed to reducing the environmental and carbon impact of construction by a process of continual improvement. We will endeavour to minimise waste through the reduction, re-use and recycling of materials, minimise energyand water usage, encourage and educate our Architects, Designers, Builders, Developers, Homeowners, Suppliers, as well as ourselves, and all those associated with the construction industry in the Channel Islands to do the same and to implement measuring and monitoring processes where necessary.

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us or call us on 01534 888000.